Qualcomm to use EUV process for next Snapdragon chipsets

Samsung Electronics and Qualcomm are expanding their foundry relationship to incorporate EUV lithography. The agreement includes the manufacture of Snapdragon 5G mobile chipsets on Samsung’s 7nm LPP process.

“We are excited to lead the 5G mobile industry together with Samsung,” said RK Chunduru, Qualcomm Technologies’ senior vice president, supply chain and procurement. “Using 7nm LPP EUV, our new generation of Snapdragon 5G mobile chipsets will take advantage of the process improvements and advanced chip design to improve the user experience of future devices.”

Introduced in May 2017, 7LPP is the first process at Samsung to use EUV. Compared with its 10nm FinFET predecessors, 7LPP EUV not only has fewer process steps and better yield, but also allows up to 40% better area efficiency and a 10% boost in performance or a reduction in power consumption of up to 35%.

Charlie Bae, executive vice president of Samsung’s foundry sales and marketing team, added: “This collaboration is an important milestone for our foundry business as it signifies confidence in Samsung’s leading process technology.”